Jawbone’s UP wristband and iPhone app available Nov. 6th for $99

We first wrote about Jawbone’s UP in our piece titled The Future of Fitness, a wearable wristband with an iPhone application that combines tracking, analysis, social and motivational elements (like letting you see your friends’ activities!). You wear it 24/7 to track your movement, how well you sleep and how you feel after you eat. Based on this information, Jawbone provides you with personalized recommendations and challenges to live a healthier life.

It’s a truly groundbreaking device in both its function and form, and it will be available on November 6th, for just $99. The UP was designed by Yves Behar to be the first health gadget you’ll want to wear. The wristband features a sophisticated motion-tracking engine in a simple, durable, and water-resistant design that unobtrusively integrates into all your daily activities and errands – in the gym, on a plane, with a party dress, business suit, and even in the shower.

Activity – The band automatically measures and stores all aspects of your activity: steps, calories burned, distance, pace, and active versus inactive time throughout the day.

Sleep – The UP band automatically tracks all aspects of your sleep including hours slept, time to fall asleep, phases of sleep (deep versus light) and overall sleep quality.

Eat – Capturing your meals in a photo journal is as easy as taking a photo with your iPhone or iPod touch. UP tracks where you’re eating, when you’ve eaten, and even asks how you feel after you’ve had time to digest your meal, making it an easy way to identify how different foods affect your body.

Check out this image to see the tech inside the device. Interestingly, the bluetooth manufacturer has built the UP to plug-in via headphone jack.

“As the global health crisis mounted, we felt a strong sense of responsibility to see if we could leverage our resources, talents, and ecosystem to try and help make a difference,” said Hosain Rahman, Jawbone CEO and Founder. “UP is Jawbone’s first step in giving people tools to become engaged as consumers of their own health. It’s a complete system designed to integrate seamlessly into one’s total lifestyle, 24 hours a day, not just the few times a week people may work out. We integrated MotionX with our expertise in building sophisticated technology into small packages, which enabled us to craft a wearable and power-efficient band that beautifully disappears onto your body. And thanks to the success and adoption of the iPhone, millions of users already have beautiful displays and robust computing platforms in their pocket. We harness that amazing display with a fun, engaging iPhone app to bring the band to life. The result is a product experience that you will actually wear and love to keep using.”

To see the UP app in action, check out this short video below.

Other monitoring devices currently on the market include Garmin watches and Fitbit, which (until now) has been the most popular device to track all of your daily activity such as calories burned, sleep quality, steps and distance. FitBit syncs with fitness programs such as LoseIt!, RunKeeper and Microsoft HealthVault. No word yet on whether Jawbone’s UP with sync with similar platforms.

In our piece on The Future of Fitness, we caught up with Travis Bogard, VP of Product Management & Strategy at Jawbone who had this final thought to add:

I think we’ll see more and more technology seamlessly integrated on and about the body. It will be functional, stylish, wearable 24/7 and…will help people measure their health and understand all of the elements that affect their health over time…With this, I think we’ll see a shift toward people thinking about health as something that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – not just moments when we think we’re being healthy…Tools like UP will help free us from that dedicated workout time and give us an opportunity identify and track healthy activities that we enjoy each and every day.

Jawbone has just helped sort Christmas presents for everyone in my family. And I expect I won’t be the only one saying that this holiday season.